Many different types of chairs have been developed in the medical field for placing patients in a desired position for treatment or diagnosis. These include dental chairs and ophthalmological chairs. One such chair is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,002, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the disclosure of which is hereby fully incorporated by reference herein. The chair disclosed in this patent has the ability to raise and lower a patient seated within the chair and also the ability to recline the patient and raise the patient's feet by way of a pivoting backrest, leg rest and footrest. Often, it is desirable to simply tilt the patient back while leaving the patient in essentially the same seated position. Such chairs are typically referred to as "tilt chairs". Various tilt chairs have been proposed in the past, however, no chair to date has adequately and efficiently allowed a medical professional to both tilt a patient into position and raise or lower the patient during or after diagnosis or treatment.
For these and other reasons, it would be desirable to provide a tilt chair which is cost efficient in design, yet may be used by a medical professional to both tilt a patient automatically into position and raise or lower that patient into the ultimately desired position.